APPENDIX C 569
Germany's; and by a natural illusion he assumed other crowned
heads to be in a corresponding position. He could never get it out
of his mind that King Edward wag; and that, when the king went to
visit, say, the King of Italy or the Emperor of Austria, it was the
director of Great Britain's foreign policy trying to seduce Italy or
Austria from the Triple Alliance. Such misconceptions percolated
right down through the German population, and gave rise to the
baseless legend of Einkreisung, whereby England was held guilty of
trying to 'encircle' Germany with a ring of hostile Powers. This
myth, it is clear, arose directly out of King Edward's visits; but for
them, it could scarcely have carried so much conviction. And in so
far as it helped to create in Germany that spirit of nervousness which
—in psychological alliance with the spirit of violence—helped to put
the war party in the saddle, it made a definite contribution to the
eventual catastrophe.
King Edward's long stays abroad had, incidentally, a domestic
outcome. By removing him for large parts of each year from regular
and daily contact with ministers, they made it impracticable for his
wishes to be consulted in such detail as Queen Victoria's had been.
This tended materially to lessen the personal influence of the mon-
arch within the constitution.
2. The Final Authority at Berlin 1312-14
Just as the Germans in 1901-10 exaggerated King Edward's in-
fluence over British foreign policy by regarding him as the analogue
of their own Emperor, so the liberal government and liberal party in
England exaggerated the influence of the German chancellor and
foreign office in 1911-14 by regarding them as the analogues of the
prime minister and foreign office in Great Britain. This they were
far from being.
The chancellor was, under the Emperor, the head of the civil
administration of the Reich, and as such controlled the foreign office.
Indeed since wide spheres of Germany's domestic administration
were not federal but devolved on the federated states, foreign affairs
engaged a much larger proportion of his attention than in the case of
a British prime minister. Prior to Bethmann-Hollweg's advent, the
holder of the chancellorship had always, save during the four years
of Caprivi's tenure, been a diplomatist with ambassadorial experi-
ence.
But the chancellor did not, as the British prime minister did, con-
trol the army and navy. Although, as the Kaiser's representative in
the Reichstag and the Bundesrat, it would be his duty, in conjunction
with the war minister, to get the necessary monies voted and bills
carried, he had a very limited voice in determining what those